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With you? Lily wanted to ask, but didn’t dare. There was something new and very worrying in Ronan’s mood. Something that put a distance between them she didn’t know how to bridge. She could almost see the barriers, and signs spelling out only too clearly: Keep Out! No Entry!
So now she submitted silently to the cool, impersonal touch of his hands as he helped her from the settee. She let him support her up the stairs and into her bedroom.
Her bedroom, she noted, and not the room he slept in, where they had shared a bed and made love so gloriously and so passionately for the past week.
If anything spoke most clearly of the change in him, then it was this. Every other day he had kept clear of her bedroom, never coming into it, never even opening the door. But now he led her straight into it, lowering her to sit on the side of the bed.
‘You’ll need to sleep.’
He was halfway to the door again when it dawned on her that he really meant it. He actually planned to leave her alone. But she couldn’t find the words to call him back. Her heart leapt in weak relief when he hesitated, seemed to relent, and swung back abruptly.
‘Will you be able to rest?’ he asked. ‘What about those nightmares.’
Right now, he looked like the one who was haunted by dark demons, his eyes clouded and dull, lines of strain etched around his nose and mouth.
‘There’s one sure way of keeping them at bay.’
Lily patted the opposite side of the bed, lifting the quilt invitingly. When he didn’t respond she tried a faint smile, her stomach quailing when it wasn’t returned but was met with a coldly quelling glare.
‘No.’ It was as hard and unyielding as his stony expression.
‘Ronan, please!’
If he left her like this she knew what the night would be like for her, the horrors that would haunt what little sleep she might have, and she couldn’t bear it.
‘No!’ If possible it was even more emphatic than before, in spite of the fact that he hadn’t raised his voice from a conversational level.
‘But, Ronan, I’m scared! I’m afraid to be on my own. I’ll never sleep…’
His sigh was a masterpiece of controlled resignation as once more he raked a rough hand through the darkness of his hair.
‘You won’t be on your own. I’ll sleep here.’
A wave of his hand indicated the old-fashioned chaise longue that stood in the wide bay of the window.
‘But you’ll be desperately uncomfortable.’
‘I’ll manage.’ He dismissed her concern with an indifference that stung bitterly.
‘Ronan…’
‘No! That’s how it’s to be, Lily. That or nothing. I spend the night here or I leave and you sleep entirely alone. What’s it to be?’
She had no alternative but to agree. It was either that or face the terrors of the night alone. She had done that many times in the past, but somehow this time the prospect seemed so much worse.
And she knew why. Those nights spent wrapped in the comforting strength of Ronan’s arms had brought home to her what real peace, real, relaxed sleep actually meant, and the thought of having to return to facing her nightmares on her own was more than she could bear. If she couldn’t have Ronan’s warm, strong body next to hers then she’d settle for his distant but nevertheless comforting presence. It was better than nothing at all.
In the end she slept surprisingly well, the strains of the night taking their toll. At first she knew a sense of restlessness, a yearning ache that suffused her body at the thought that Ronan was so near and yet so very far away, and she feared it might keep her awake all night. But that gave way to exhaustion, and once asleep she didn’t wake until late the next morning when the sound of rain against the windowpane brought her awake at last.
Ronan was still there, his long body curled uncomfortably on the chaise longue. He was deeply asleep, his burnished hair falling in soft disarray across his face, long lashes lying like black crescents above his strong cheekbones. The blanket he had pulled over himself had fallen to the floor, tangled in a way that seemed to indicate a far more restless night than she had spent, revealing the navy pyjama trousers he had insisted on changing into before settling down for the night.
What had brought on such an uncharacteristic attack of modesty? Lily wondered, a sudden wave of uneasy vulnerability driving her to pull on the mint-green robe before sliding out of bed and padding across the room on bare feet to perch on the side of the old-fashioned settee. When they had shared a bed he had scorned the idea of any nightwear and had slept gloriously naked, his powerful body entwined with hers. So what had been so very different about last night?
As her mind fretted at the question Ronan stirred slightly and muttered in his sleep. As if sensing her gaze on him, he tensed suddenly. The next moment his blue-grey eyes flew open to meet her watchful golden gaze.
Ronan’s first response was a warmly sensual delight that heated his blood, making him want to stretch indolently like a lazy cat lying basking in the sun. The soft weight of her body against his legs, the brush of her golden hair against the bare flesh of his chest and the scent of her skin, still flushed with sleep, were such a heady pleasure that every one of his senses swam in voluptuous delight, making him feel as if he was adrift on a warm, glowing tide.
But then she shifted slightly, the movement tugging the sides of her robe apart and exposing the velvet slopes of her breasts in the same second that his body came fully awake. The instant, clawing hunger was like a hot knife searing a path through every nerve, making him want to reach for her, pull her down beside him, wrench open the flimsy silk that was all that came between them…
Recollection of the events of the previous night was like a slap in the face from brutal, icy fingers, the feeling of guilty unease that followed strong enough to crush down even the most erotic of temptation. He had lain awake for hours after Lily had finally fallen asleep, going over and over things but always coming to the one, irrefutable conclusion.
There was no future for him and Lily unless he was completely straight with her and told her everything. The trouble was that deep down inside he feared the effect that truth would have once it was revealed.
The possibility that there was no future for the two of them, no matter what, was what had kept him awake in the early hours of the morning. And the real complication was that he had just come to realise how much he wanted that future, only to face the possibility of having it snatched away from him.
But first they had to talk. And so he schooled his expression into one of a calm control he was light-years away from feeling and even managed a faint smile.
‘Good morning.’
It had taken only a couple of seconds, but Lily had seen the swift, careful adjustment of his expression, the switch from sleepy sensuality, to slightly unfocused wariness, and then to an apparently relaxed control. And it was that control that worried her. It seemed that whatever had kept him distant from her last night still clouded his thoughts this morning.
‘Did you sleep OK?’
‘I was fine.’
Lily’s response was uneven, raw-edged. She sensed that, like her, he was thinking back to the first day of their marriage, when she had woken to find him looking down at her much as she was doing to him now.
‘How about you?’
He looked dreadful. As if the few seconds’ sleep that she had witnessed since she’d woken had been all the rest he’d actually managed. Her concern grew as he stretched slowly, grimacing in discomfort as he tested muscles that had obviously stiffened into their cramped positions.
‘I’ll live.’
It was a throwaway line, one that didn’t ring quite true in its casual nonchalance. But Lily didn’t have time to consider what lay behind it before he spoke again.
‘Lily, about last night. I want you to know that I knew nothing of this. Davey never said a word about your parents and how they died. If I’d known what you’d been through, I’d never have—’
‘Never have married me?’ Lily jumped in far too quickly.
She wished he hadn’t stirred. The movement of sitting up had brought into play muscles that she knew from experience had a whipcord strength when they folded round her body. Watching them slide and bunch under the smooth skin, lightly covered in dark hair, dried her mouth and made her heart flutter uncomfortably.
‘No.’ It was a flat, unemotional declaration. ‘I would never have married you. I’m only sorry that I did.’
Did he know how much it pained her to hear him say that? Lily’s hand went to her mouth to hold back the whimper of distress that almost escaped her. Perversely, the fact that he was apologising for having gone through their pantomime marriage ceremony now seemed to hurt more than discovering the truth about that event ever had.
‘You can’t know how much I regret that.’
Feeling as if some red-hot knife was hacking out her heart with brutal, clumsy cuts, Lily had to drag up from the depths of her soul the courage to retort, ‘But you wanted revenge—someone to repay Davey’s debts.’
‘Debts!’ Ronan echoed with black cynicism, swinging his long legs off the chaise and getting to his feet, pacing about the room as if he couldn’t bear to be still a moment longer. ‘No one can replace what your brother took from me!’
